Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Bruce Brief-August
Of all the varied things we do here in Ecuador, teaching God’s Word to the Awa is central to our whole reason for being here among them. However, communicating clearly is often a struggle as we try to put God’s truth into words their hearts (or livers, in Awa-speak) can understand. Many times our prayer is that the Lord will take our attempts to communicate and ‘bridge the gap’ in the people’s understanding. We most certainly would appreciate your prayers in this regard! We thought we’d just quickly share with you a summary of what’s up with the Bible teaching.
Sunday teaching: Three Sundays a month we’ve been teaching the believers here at the Outpost, just finishing up the book of Titus and getting started into 1 Thessalonians. Last week it was a treat to have Doug Williams, our co-worker on home assignment in the US, here to teach! Please pray for the 10 or so believers who are regularly attending. Although at times it is such a struggle to communicate clearly, we’ve had many good conversations with these folks concerning the truths in these Scriptures. In several we’ve seen the willingness and eagerness to let God take pre-eminence in their lives, even when His Word clashes with their culture. Please pray for Delia, Manuela, and Cecilia—Awa women who faithfully attend but are quiet during the teaching, making it difficult to know where their understanding is at. Paulino’s daughter Sandra, and another young Awa woman, Elvia, have recently asked to be baptized. Paulino told both of these girls that they should think hard before they make the choice to be baptized. “Make sure that you truly you want to follow God’s path,” he told them, “because it’s not right to say you are going to follow and then just forget like some other Awa have done.”
Kids’ teaching: Each Sunday we teach the kids a Bible story. Milton faithfully and enthusiastically taught through Moses and the Israelites in Egypt using lessons our co-worker Doug had translated. At that point in the Old Testament story, we ran out of translated lessons, so it was back to me to teach again. Now we have reached the birth of Jesus and the New Testament lessons, and are happy that again Milton can teach, as we have the Awa lessons that he can study up and read from himself. Pray for Milton as he prepares—it is still hard work for him to read clearly and accurately. He often listens to the Scripture passage on the Proclaimer (the device that plays a digital recording of the Awa New Testament) in order to understand better. We are blessed by his diligence. As we get into Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, pray that these kids will clearly understand Jesus’ sacrifice for their sins. Cristian, Graciela, Yaneth, David, Salomon, Monica, Sergio….all are Awa kids for whom Christ died.
P. Community: One weekend a month I’ve been making the hike to Paulino’s home community to teach the believers at his house, reviewing the book of Ephesians with them. Paulino and his sister Gloria have told us many times that others in the community are wanting to hear God’s Word, especially Victor, Paulino’s neighbor, and Marco Aurelio’s family (whose two daughters were the ones who drowned back in June.) Two weeks ago, I was able to attend a community meeting there and asked for permission to begin teaching the evangelism lessons in the communal house. I received a guarded response—not exactly enthusiastic, but at least there was no outright opposition. Please pray for God to open hearts in this community, as I begin the teaching on August 16th. Also pray that Paulino and Milton will take an active interest and role in the teaching.
Meregildo’s family: Friday afternoons find me at Meregildo’s house to teach the Bible. I never quite know what will be waiting for me there…a pig-butchering, cows to vaccinate, even (about a month ago) a family argument to settle (between Meregildo and his brother Francisco. Now that was a puzzle to sort out, as both men talked heatedly at each other all at once, with me in the middle. I’m not sure I ever quite got the details down, although I think I might have kept them from hitting each other!) But at some point while I am there each Friday, Meregildo will call his family together to listen to the teaching. Right now we are studying the life of Christ together. Please pray for good understanding for this dear family.
B. Community: Once a month we drive the 3 hours to teach Alfonso’s family here in this community. We just finished studying the books of Acts together, and are just getting into Romans. We wish we could make it there more often, as this family is hungry to hear God’s Word. We are excited to have Humberto coming from this community to join us this coming week for some work on the OT translation with Doug. We’d love to see Humberto (one of the few in this family that can read) able to teach his own family, so that they can hear the Bible teaching more often. Please pray for Humberto to gain confidence that he can be God’s instrument in spreading His Word.
We want the Awa to know the same encouragement and help that the truths of God’s Word are to our own hearts. As the Lord brings the work here to your minds, we’d sure appreciate your prayers for the Bible teaching!
Kevin and Kathy
Kevin & Kathy Bruce
Liebenzell Mission
Casilla 10-01-692
Ibarra, Imbabura
ECUADOR
+593 9 478-7811
Friday, June 20, 2008
Spring Bruce Report
BTW: Here is a link to our Spring Bruce Report (sent via snail mail) if you are interested: Bruce Report
Kevin
Bruce Brief - June 2008
Greetings from the RV Outpost!
The summer begin with a tragedy in the community south of us. The first week of June our neighbor Milton went to go fishing and found the body of a young girl floating in the river down below us. For Milton it was an extremely upsetting moment, but after praying, the Lord gave him courage to tie the body up, get help, and find out what had happened. We were in Ibarra that week, and Kathy’s sister Chrissy was at the Outpost alone, but did what she could to help. Milton soon found out that the body belonged to one of two girls that were missing from a family 3 hours’ hike upriver from the Outpost. The girls had been returning from their country farm to the community center where they went to school, and had to cross one of the swollen creeks along the way. Apparently they somehow were washed downstream. Their family, along with many others from the community, searched for the next two weeks all along the river from their community to town, but were unable to locate the other body (about 25 kilometers of river). Please pray for the family of Marco Aurelio as they deal with this sad loss. Pray for Paulino as he reaches out to them and others there in the community. One day while searching the river near us, Marco Aurelio asked me if it was true (as he had been told) that people that drowned in rivers couldn’t go to Heaven. I assured him that drowning in a river made no difference to God---His acceptance of a person had everything to do with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and not the manner of death. I encouraged him to help his remaining family hear God’s truth. But our hearts are heavy knowing that likely neither Marco nor his girls have accepted Jesus’ payment for their sin. Please pray for this needy family!
The beginning of this week found us assisting in a medical caravan here in RV. A missions trip organized by our friend Sheila in Kentucky came down bringing medicine and doctors. This group is visiting different communities here in Ecuador giving a free medical checkup and medicine when necessary. They have come annually here to our community, and it was a joy to work with them again. In the two days here they saw around 350 people and showed Christ’s love in a very tangible way to the Awa people. We also took the opportunity to teach the Bible with all those who came, sharing that although when Jesus was here on earth he was concerned with the health and physical issues of the people, he came with the purpose to provide a cure for the even more serious disease of sin. Just as these doctors freely offered medicine, God freely offered his Son. Click here to see a few pictures
Thank you so much for your continued prayers!
Kevin & Kathy
PS: check out this big worm we saw while hiking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtaIpfJUqF0
Kevin & Kathy Bruce
Liebenzell Mission
Casilla 10-01-692
Ibarra, Imbabura
ECUADOR
+593 9 478-7811
Friday, May 30, 2008
Kenny's Israel Report
"Day 2
I don’t think very many people slept. This day began in the vicinity of the British Isles. Dawn wasn’t until just past Rome, and as we passed Greece, I had a conversation with a weird old lady to my left… it seems she liked reading classics and watching war movies, and had never been out of the country before. We landed at Tel-Aviv.
The airport was near the beach. Getting out was easy… just getting your passport stamped, and collecting bags. Then it was outside. The temperature was about 75-80 days: perfect. The three busses were right there; big red and white things that said, oddly enough, “Maya Tours” on the side. Our bags had tags that said “Canaan Tours” on them… and as we got on the bus, we were handed blue hats that said “Diesenhaus Unitours” on them… that was one puzzle I never figured out. But there were more interesting things going on.
Our guide, Amnon, introduced himself and carefully explained that even though our internal clocks probably though it was 1AM, we shouldn’t go to sleep because then we would stay up all night and be just as sleepy the next day. So I accepted the slightly dizzy feeling I’ve come to associate with exhaustion and ignored it."
If you want to read the rest of it check it out here: FULL ISRAEL REPORT
Beware it is 7 pages long! ;-)
TTFN
Kevin
Monday, May 5, 2008
Big hike
Here are a few pictures from Kenny's and my 12 hour hike to Buenos Aires with Paulino and a group of the Awa from Palmira. J
http://picasaweb.google.com/brucekev/BuenosAiresTrip